Thanks to everyone for replying; in particular, thanks, Lasse Petersen -- based on what you said about using the s/ operator, i did this: @list = keys(%FORM); foreach $item (@list) { s/\$FORM{$item}/$FORM{$item}/g; } and it works perfectly. I think i'll go to bed now.... thanks again andrew -===- "...everybody is making love or else expecting rain..." - bob dylan andrew fiore / beany@nando.net / beany@mindspring.com / anandroid@aol.com http://www.jordan.durham.k12.nc.us/ http://www.webbuild.com/~beany/tip/ http://users.aol.com/anandroid/poe/poe.html http://www.duke.edu/~nbuckley/andy_and_brian.html -===-